Nickelodeon Launches Slimezone VR at IMAX VR Centers

Nickelodeon launched its SlimeZone multi-player VR experience at IMAX VR centers in Los Angeles, New York and Toronto Friday, with further plans to bring the social experience to locations in Shanghai, Bangkok and Manchester (UK) soon.

We first got our heads into SlimeZone when Nickelodeon debuted the social VR experience at VidCon last year. Attendees could jump into one of six networked Oculus Rift headsets and enter the world of SlimeZone, letting you play games, watch cartoons, create art, and of course slime others. There was even a chance for parents to participate from the sidelines on a classic upright arcade machine converted into an in-game spectator camera. Parents could switch from room to room and mash a button to fire objects at players in game.

Now visitors to IMAX VR centers can try an updated SlimeZone for themselves. The multi-player social VR experience still boasts some of our favorite activities like playing basketball, painting in a 3D space, blasting slime, and watching Nickelodeon cartoons. But you can also select an avatar for yourself and non-VR players can participate alongside their friends and family as they explore the Nickelodeon world in spectator mode, by flying a virtual drone to slime players.

“IMAX VR is designed to be a highly social, group experience – which makes Nickelodeon’s SlimeZone a perfect fit to bring to our centres,” says David Campbell, Executive Vice President of Corporate Development and Theatre Operations, IMAX Corp. “We are excited that IMAX VR players will get exclusive access to this exciting, fun and family-friendly virtual world.”

SlimeZone was built using Epic’s Unreal Engine and Nvidia FleX particle system for slime simulation.

Launched in 2017, the Nickelodeon Entertainment Lab that created SlimeZone focuses on long-range research and development of emerging technologies. The Lab experiments with VR, mixed-reality, augmented reality and artificial intelligence to provide Nickelodeon artists and creators with innovative tools that inspire new ways to tell stories for the next generation of kids.

Nickelodeon recently announced a financial investment in Dreamscape Immersive, the location-based VR startup, whereby both entities have committed to produce an experience using Nickelodeon’s IP for kids and families.